2024-09-09 08:00:32
According to Gancho Iliev, chairman of the management board of the “World Without Borders” association in Stara Zagora, they set the model for the modernization of the Roma communityetc
“I confirm the conclusion of the report on the integration of the Roma from 2023, indeed those working abroad visibly raise their standard of living and thus set the model for the modernization of the Roma community. This process in Stara Zagora has been going on for ten years, but it has been especially vividly manifested in the last 5. These people understand the meaning of investing in their quality of life, and they can do it because they receive good remuneration abroad.”
This is what Gancho Iliev, chairman of the management board of the association “World Without Borders” in Stara Zagora, told “24 Chasa”.
“About 15,000 people live in the Roma quarter “Lozenets”, where I have been working for years, but at the moment there are about 5-6 thousand of them. The others are mainly in England and Ireland, 20-30% are already permanently established there. In Ireland, for example, there are two meat processing plants where many people from Stara Zagora work. Hard and dirty work, but well paid. Even the employees of “Personal Staff” there, who prepare the workers’ documents, are Bulgarian, because they speak Bulgarian and English.
These people, even if they buy apartments abroad, still invest in their native neighborhood, do not cut ties with their loved ones. They claim that they will return to us in their old age, and they send money to their relatives. Some are returning even now. They already have a different standard of living – they drive nice cars, wear fashionable clothes, visit elite restaurants and spa resorts. In the “Lozenets” district in Stara Zagora, they invest in legal properties, they built nice big houses. It may be a paradox, but at the moment there are no houses for sale here, or if they are, their price is much higher than in other districts of the city. Shops for modern clothes, not second-hand, have appeared next to the squatters, and people from other areas also come to shop.
Gurbetchii also invest in the education of their children – many of them study abroad, were born there and even hardly speak Bulgarian. They also develop their own business – here and there. They are mainly engaged in trade, construction, agriculture, snack production. They see, and I support them, that the alternative for the realization of young people from the community is to work abroad. In Bulgaria, work for people with low qualifications, for example in communal services, is low paid. It employs older Roma. The same is the case with seasonal workers – they work for several months a year abroad, but return and spend their money here. In other words, they don’t live badly either.”